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The wind plays Schubert

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Brenda Bossy Pants and her Friends

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Women have been mean to women since Biblical times, Sarah and Hagar vying for Abraham's loyalty, to the Archie comics with best friend rivals Betty and Veronica. Usually the conflict is over a man, but it could be merely envy or a…

Where Breakfast Went

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Larry’s unwashed hands held a cardboard sign. Two largely printed words that would, every now and then, elicit a thumbs up. “Got Pot?” was the only question he really wanted an answer to.

The Secret of Big Sur

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When you sit long enoughthe low-lying scrubbegin to swaynot with the windbut of their own volition.It takes timefor them to trust youWhen you sit long enoughthe tree top brancheswelcome waves of fogand gently pushthe mist inland.It takes timefor the cloud-tide to rise.When…

Poison

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The High Priest Psychiatrist at Orwellian Industries Medical Center where I used to work loved to hear himself say the following, to my horror, at every staff meeting: "We psychiatrists prescribe the poisons to the patients and the…

The Corridor of Men in Suits

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Attachment

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I would like to credit St. Mary's and St. Joseph's for my decision to become a Buddhist nun. The day after I sacrificed my virginity to Johnny Delaney, St. Joseph's star quarterback, he dumped me for Fiona Kelly. That's when I decided to…

Gassed

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The Magic of Theater

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A blue oil lamp on the piano behind a screen where Hedda Gabler shoots herself in that last scene.The audience hears, but cannot see, the gunshot. An elderly man —— new to the play and totally caught up in the story —— audily gasps, "Oh my…

Just Another Sunny Day of Terror

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Winter White

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She was seeing a new psychiatrist because her old one had died and she resented having to see any psychiatrists at all but needed medication for depression. This one was blonde, blue-eyed with a Russian accent. From the way…

other fish

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and so you waits for years, and he decides that all he needs to learn, he can learn from this woman, the contents of her ether being syrupy and more lush in his mouth than all the words of bound philosophy.

Hard Time

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Obesity in America is now considered a felony, thanks to Michelle Obama's biceps and weight obsession. They've sent me to couch potato prison where I'm doing hard time in a dark corner of an unfinished basement filled with cobwebs that…

The Farmer's Sons

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Krauts and Doubts

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Moral Dilemmas at Harvard

The Right Dose

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Astrology for a Better Future

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Nobody looks for Gina between the hours of four and five. Her father is on swing shift for the rest of the summer; his two o'clock- dinner plates are soaking in a sinkful of scummy water. Her mother is fanning herself in the shade of the wisteria, most of her…

The Cozy Battle Station

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How to Listen

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Evil Eyes

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Life's Meaning

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Every morning when she arrived at work, Jackie filled her bright red cup with coffee, sat down at her desk and riffled through Women's Wear Daily to see if there were any candid photos taken of her walking down Fifth Avenue where…

Tolstoy

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At first, it was tedious, those long Russian names, the convoluted story, but recess after recess he stayed in and became enchanted

How Circular Turns Infinity

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Stranded on Jamaica Street

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There are horse drawn carriages, gentlemen in top hats, it's the turn of some century, before souls were stored in jars.

Optimism

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She doesn't think about bad things anymore. She used to worry about nukes. She'd imagine Hiroshimas everywhere. She'd imagine the seas rising, the planet a string of deserts, polar bears drowning, butterflies shriveling. The world…

Harlow's Monkeys

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Ode to the Monterey Peninsula

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Ode to the Monterey PeninsulaWe love…to stand on Lovers Point in the early morning watching when the waves break how water droplets rise to form fleeting rainbows.to walk by Hawk Tower in the early evening imagining Robinson Jeffers…

How Solomon Built His Temple

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I need an elderly woman to lick my eyeballs clean

Are You Still Mine?

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Greta asked me to slow-dance with her. This was bold behavior for 1960. and she looked me in the eye when she asked..

The Art of Conversation

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The lounge in our hotel —— the Oregon coast —— one guest, wheelchair bound, in residence for the full summer season, asks us in her Main Line Philadelphia accent, "Have you come far?" "No, not far. Flew from Salt Lake…